Let me introduce you to the world of text expanders.
Imagine you write the same sentence, reply, or even emoji all the time.
Maybe 100’s of times a month.
What if you could write a short little cue word that would then “expand” into the full sentence?
Useful for affiliate codes, URLs, boiler plate reply emails, the shrug emoji ( ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) and so much more.
Well, the cool thing is you can do that.
For the past couple years I’ve been using a program called “Text Expander” and it’s great.
The drawback?
They log every single keystroke because it is listening for you to send it a cue.
So it’s kind of weird to have some other company listening to every. single. thing. that I type.
That’s why, when I found “espanso” this week, I was pretty happy about it.
It’s an open source (and free, even though I sent the developer $20 for making something this cool) approach to expanding text and it has a couple tricks up its sleeve that will make a HUGE difference for me.
But the coolest thing is that it runs on my computer locally. It’s not calling out to some other server or building a psychometric profile on me while I chat with friends.
Now, it is a little different from Text Expander.
Text Expander is incredibly easy to use. Set up your account, log into each of your computers, and voila! Everything is shared across your devices!
With espanso, you have to set up the synchronization. Plus, you have to create files where your cues live.
So it’s a bit of a learning curve, but I think it’s worth it to escape the all-seeing-eye of Sauron in my digital life.
Figured you might be interested in it, so give it a look.
I might do a video on it in a couple weeks after I’ve had some time to work with it. What do you think? Would that be cool?
Best thoughts,
~Jonathan